Between Then and Now
by Fuuga Kumi
Summary: Set pre KH. Yuffie's gone missing, again, and Aerith looks at Leon with those worried eyes of hers. It's snowing, you see, and she didn't wear her jacket out.


Opening Note: This one shot was originally written to be a drabble for the kh_drabble community over at livejournal. As you can see it got a little...wordy. I did manage to tear it down to fit the criteria for the community but I hold a special place in my heart for the full length version, which I present to you now. If you're interesting in seeing how the shortened version turned out, please visit my profile page to a link to the kh_drabble community (and feel free to join us if you haven't already!)

**Between Then and Now**

Yuffie has disappeared (again) and Aerith paces the length of their borrowed kitchen, worrying her bottom lip and casting furtive glances out the window. Leon doesn't ask if she's alright, doesn't ask anything in fact, just leans against the door frame and watches her flutter about like a trapped bird. "It's just, she didn't put on a coat." She finally says, her empty hands turning over as if this explained everything. Aerith doesn't ask anything of him, but then again she never does.

Leon stopped questioning certain aspects of his life a long time ago, it made it easier to swallow situations like this; when he finds himself crunching through newly fallen snow with a sweater tucked under one arm and Aerith calling at his back "Tell her I'm making potato soup!"

As if the simple lure of food would be enough to draw her back. Leon doesn't bother telling her this, just like he hasn't bothered telling her these things for the past handful of years. "Whatever," he says instead.

The residents of Traverse Town are already locked inside (shut ins, he thinks unkindly), nobody ventures out anymore if they can help (everyone fears the living shadows too much) and while he searches he notices more than one house has taken to marking their doorways with strange symbols. Signs from their homeworlds, he thinks (and already the sights are sliding from his mind as he moves on to take in more important things), marks meant to keep out the darkness. Some houses have left the windows open, torn the doors from their hinges. Leon instinctively moves away from these places (the scent of death, of loneliness and lives torn away lingers heavily in the air around them) the people inside have already lost too much and far be it from him to tell them how to carry on with their own time.

The path he takes is familiar, if not more than a little disused. He remembers (faintly, as if looking down a long corridor) traveling these alleyways and roads many many years ago (when he was a different person, the last breath of a storm) for this exact same person. Somehow, Leon knows he'll find her (straddling the roof of the accessory shop, counting stars silently to herself) exactly where she always hid before (smaller then, less angles and more innocence).

Yuffie doesn't disappoint. He can see her silhouette against the pale crescent moon (on her feet, another reminder of how much time has passed between then and now); her willowy form poised in complete stillness on the highest peak of the accessory shop's roof. A dull glimmer of something sharp clenched in her left hand and Leon has enough sense about him to announce his presence before climbing the ladder. She's quick with that kunai, he's been witness to that in the past.

She's smiling when he finally dusts the snow from his gloves; a full stretching of the lips (pulled back so far he can see all her teeth, practically a grimace) and she crinkles her eyes so tight he wonders if she wasn't on the cusp of crying. Yuffie is hardly ever this quiet (not since the beginning, as if she would spend the rest of her life making up for the eerie silence that swallowed her those first three years), but Leon knows too much about ghosts to bother asking if she's alright.

The moment stretches out in front of them, a myriad of possibilities slowly coming to light, Leon isn't sure what's supposed to come next. But what Yuffie finally says to break the silence is just unexpected enough to momentarily steal his breath.

"A star fell," she injects so much effort and false nonchalance into those three words Leon almost expects her to propel herself off the roof. He sees she's trembling now (only barely), words tumbling from her mouth in a cascade of frayed nerves and childhood fears. "The sky looked emptier all of a sudden, but you can't really see diddly in the Third District. Once I got here I thought I'd wait a little bit because they probably won't fall out at once. I know I forgot my jacket, Ponytail's probably having a coronary but what if I turned back and a star did fall? There'd be nobody to record it, or whatever, all because I got a little cold and-" Leon pushes her jacket into her upturned hands, stopping her mid-babble. She blinks owlishly at him, slowly coming back to herself(the girl who's all angles and sharp tools and sharper tongue).

He moves away from her, as if it's all that easy; halfway down the ladder before calling up to her, "Aerith made potato soup." Then it's back to solid ground and the doors to the second district are being shoved open. He lets Yuffie run past him, her cheerful whoop ringing sour (brassy forced brightness) in his ears, before casting one glance over his shoulder at the stars hanging overhead. Leon stares at them until his eyes water, silently trying to fix them in place in his head (in his heart) and the tiny sliver of optimism he has left is sent heavenward.

Two months later, when the last of the snow has finally melted and a molecule of warmth has returned to Traverse Town, the Mouse King's ship lands in the First District.

A week later a boy falls out of the sky.


End file.
